The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Professor Bolaji Owasanoye has revealed that the commission has discovered the diversion of N2.67 billion earmarked for school feeding programme in Federal Colleges to personal accounts.
Owasanoye revealed this during his keynote address at the 2nd National Summit on Diminishing Corruption and Launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. He said the money was diverted to personal accounts during the COVID-19 lockdown.
He also added that the commission discovered the sum of N2.5 billion that was appropriated by a deceased senior civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture for himself and allies.
He listed other assets that were recovered in the ministry to include 25 plots of land, 18 buildings and 12 business premises.
Owasanoye made it known that under the Open Treasury Portal review that was carried out between January and August 2020 in 268 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), 72 of them had cumulative infractions of N90 million.
He said: “While 33 MDAs tendered explanations that N4.1 billion was transferred to sub-TSA, N4.2 billion paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations.
“We observed that transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments of N2.67 billion to some federal colleges for school during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into these findings.”
